There are some restaurants which recommend themselves solely on the basis of one dish. The mellifluously named Painted Heron, on London's Cheyne Walk, would be worth visiting if the only thing on its menu were the whole roasted grey mullet with garlic and green chillies. It is a fabulous piece of fish, the skin crisp and blackened and salty, the flesh dense and - to use a word I hate - moist. Happily, there are a bunch of other things worth eating here. It's only a pity that, on the Monday evening we visited, there was no one else doing so. My party of six was alone, listening to the wind howling through the canyons of chairs. OK, not really; the oddly shaped room, with its clever dividing walls and smart modern art, is too warm, too inviting for those sorts of images, but you get the idea. It was deserted.

The problem is location. Cheyne Walk, which overlooks the Thames, is the kind of exclusive residential street where people hire servants to do their farting for them. The locals don't go round the corner for dinner. They go to Highgrove. Accordingly, it has to be a destination restaurant in a place few people would think of visiting. And, as I say, it's a pity, for the brand of smart Indian food here is mostly very good. It is more imaginative than most, the spice mixes are fresh and the sauces have a real depth of flavour that goes beyond a garlic and chilli kick.

Starters are around £5, main courses roughly double that. It would be impossible to list everything we six tried, but there were clear highlights. A starter of duck livers in tandoori spices brought a smart contrast between salty exterior and sweet offal meatiness within; huge black tiger prawns came charcoal-charred and crisp-skinned; a stew of baby octopus and squid with pickling spices had a fine sour edge.

Of the main courses, we were impressed by a tender lamb shank with anise seeds and ginger, and chunks of crisp-skinned duck in a sauce of hot and sour Goan spices. Two chicken dishes, though fine in themselves, fell into that all-too-common Indian trap of dun-coloured sameness, and a venison curry was a little on the tough side, but there was always that darling grey mullet to make amends.

Breads were hot and fresh. Rice came both boiled and with caramel and dry fruit. And we finished with, among other things, a terrific walnut ice cream and a pretty ceramic dish of mutka kulfi ice cream fragrant with rose water. The beer was cold. The service was warm. And then, when we were done, we had to leave them to the silence. It shouldn't be this way. The Painted Heron needs a little company. See to it, will you.

About this article

Jay Rayner: The Painted Heron

This article appeared on p67 of the Observer Magazine section of the Observer
on Saturday 14 December 2002.
It was published on
the Guardian website
at 06.45 EST on Sunday 15 December 2002.
It was last modified at 06.45 EST on Friday 4 November 2005.
It was first published at 06.45 EST on Friday 4 November 2005.